Thursday, 23 June 2011

$100 worth of science fail

So the Canadian government has decided to give our bills a makeover. Gone are the days of money made out of cotton! A new era of synthetic polymer bank notes has arrived. They look pretty cool, which is good. Supposedly, these notes are harder to counterfeit, which is even better. And the $100 bill is a celebration of science, which is even more awesome. The reverse side of the bill shows a bottle of insulin, a lady working at a microscope, and a strand of DNA, as shown below.

That helix is left-handed! DNA is a right-handed helix, not a left-handed helix. I applaud the Government for making the bill science-centric, but really, how hard would it have been to get the art accurate? The left-handed helix mistake is incredibly common, but that's really no excuse.